Jason Bargwanna has interupted the hot form of Simon Evans with a race win in the BNT NZ Touring Car round at Ruapuna.
Bargwanna and Evans shared wins with the latter winning the weekend overall by one point from the former Bathurst 1000 winner.
It was the first time that the championship adopted a success ballast system, adding 50kg of weight to the Holden Commodore of Evans for Races 2 and 3 of the weekend.
Driving his Team Richards Toyota Camry, Bargwanna said the Race 2 win was the result of hard work by his team, after a slow start to his season.
“Really proud of the team to turn around the season we’ve had so far and to deliver a win,” Bargwanna said.
“In Race 1, I think we could have taken it to Simon but we had bit of a brake issue. (In) Race 2 I managed to get in front off the start and once you have a bit of clear air you can just get on with it.”
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Bargwanna was looking in a strong position to strike again on Evans in the final race of the weekend before an incident with the Safety Car hampered his progress.
The Safety Car was called early in the race to recover the stricken car of Nick Farrier.
With the pit window opening, Bargwanna elected to pit on the restart however his approach down pit lane was hampered by following the Safety Car.
“I don’t know who was driving the Safety Car but to get caught behind it when it’s trundling down the lane at 20km/h probably cost us five or six seconds.
“If you put that into the equation, we would have been nose to tail with Simon.”
“The pace between the cars is very similar, I could see towards the end of that last race I was catching Simon who was in the lead. We’ll go again next weekend at Teretonga.”
In Class 2, it was the flying Southlander Liam MacDonald who took round honours for the third consecutive round, extending his Championship lead.
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